Book Report #71 - Painted Ladies by Robert B. Parker

Spenser is hired to protect a man who is prepared to pay a ransom for the return of a rare painting.

It does not go well.

Spenser takes it on himself to discover the killers and uncovers a larger conspiracy involving art stolen by the Nazis, academia and a shady organization.

This book was a bit different in that the whole of the crime was wrapped up in a higher moral task of returning stolen art to rightful owners who suffered untold losses during World War Two.

The bad guys were creative, smart and nearly invisible but they made one crucial mistake; underestimating Spenser.

This was a first rate book, the only disappointment I had with it was the absence of Hawk who's take on cases and his interplay with Spenser is one of the things I look forward to.

This was well worth the time to read.

Truly Parker had his character down pat.  I love reading a book where the author is in complete command.

Robert B Parker

Book Report #70 - Robert B. Parker's Fool Me Twice by Michael Brandman

Once again Brandman manages to pull off a beautiful balance of a story.

Jesse Stone is pursuing multiple cases at the same time, which is more realistic than most cop stories that focus on only one case.  I'm sure cops are working lots of things at once.

Here Jesse looks into a complaint of a water bill that is too high, the arrest of the daughter of a prominent citizen for distracted driving causing bodily harm, the arrival of a movie shoot and a troubled ex-husband terrorizing his ex-wife who is the star of the film.

This was a wonderful romp, an easy read and completely enjoyable.

Brandman is solid in the role of writing new Jesse Stone novels.

Michael Brandman

Tom Selleck as Jesse Stone.

The Man Himself - Robert B Parker

Book Report #69 - Robert B. Parker's Killing the Blues by Michael Brandman

This was the first Jesse Stone novel written by another author after Parker's death.

Michael Brandman was a perfect writer to take over the series; he was deeply involved in producing the Jesse Stone movies starring Tom Selleck.  One of the first things Brnadman did was to move Jesse into the house that he occupies in the movies.  I thought that was a nice touch mostly because I came to Jesse Stone via the movies.

Brandman was able to take up Parker's style of writing with seeming little effort.  The dialog was perfect and the narrative was in keeping with Parker's own.

But was the book any good?

Yep.

Jessee is confronted with multiple events; there is a beautiful promoter who wants to set up a rock concert festival in Paradise, there is a rash of cars being stolen with one ending in murder and, unknown to Jesse, he's being stalked by an ex-con who he arrested in LA during the period he was a drunk on the job.

I loved how the author was able to balance the mundane events of being a small town cop (sorry, chief of police) with the extraordinary events of mob crime and psycho killers on the loose.

I am so happy that Jesse Stone is such capable hands. 

Michael Brandman

Tom Selleck as Jesse Stone

Robert B Parker